The National Geographic Magazine
Pomeiooc (Plate III). These two scenes de
pict many aspects of Indian life-feasting,
dancing, raising corn, pumpkins, and uppowoc
(tobacco), hunting deer in the adjoining for
est, and obtaining water from a near-by stream
or pond.
Visiting Dasamonquepeuc, a village near
Roanoke Island, White was intrigued by the
way the women there carried their children
(Plate IV).
"For our women,"
he noted,
"carrie their children in their armes before
their brestes, but they [the Indians], taking
their sonne by the right hand, bear him on
their backs, holding the left thighe in their
left arme."
Here the artist erred, for in his
drawing, with front and rear views, the mother
holds her child by the left hand and right
thigh.
"When they go to battle they paynt their
bodyes in the most terrible manner that they
can devise," White said of the "weroans or
greate lordes of Virginia" (Plate V).
"They
carry a quiver made of small rushes holding
their bowe readie bent in one hand and arrowe
in the other, readie to defend themselves."
Le Moyne reported the existence of moun
tains, "called in the Indian language Apa
latcy," a great distance from Fort Caroline.
In these, he said, "are found much gold, silver,
and brass, mixed together. Accordingly, the
natives dig ditches in these streams into which
the sand brought down by the current falls
by gravity. Then they collect it out (Plate
VI), and carry it away . . . and after a time
collect again what continues to fall in."
The Virginia Indians' method of fashioning
dugout canoes aroused White's greatest en
thusiasm (Plate VII).
"For whereas they
want instruments of yron," he reported, "they
knowe howe to make them as handsomelye,
to saile with whear they liste in their rivers,
and to fishe with all, as ours."
An Example for White Men
Le Moyne spoke approvingly of the Florida
Indians' custom of storing their crops in pub
lic granaries (Plate VIII). This system spared
the owners of the provisions any apprehen
sions of being defrauded. "Indeed," Le Moyne
observed further, "it is to be wished that,
among the Christians, avarice prevailed no
more than among them, and tormented no
more the minds of men."
Le Moyne's devotion to detail is evident in
his painting of an Indian chief, liberally tat
tooed and bedecked with feathers and metal
ornaments, surrounded by keening widows,
and with other Indians and colonists standing
at a respectful distance (Plate IX). In an
other Florida scene, however, he apparently
succumbed to a tendency to exaggerate, for his
"crocodrilles," or alligators, are depicted as of
unbelievable size (Plate XIII).
The Virginia Algonquians' habit of cooking
and eating their fish immediately after catch
ing them, as compared with the Florida In
dians' thrifty practice of curing theirs for
later use, was noted by White (Plate X).
White called the Indians' earthen vessels,
in which they cooked stews (Plate XI), "so
large and fine that our potters with large
wheles can make noe better."
Of the Indians'
moderate eating habits he said: "I would to
God wee would follow their example. For wee
should bee free from many kynes of diseasves
which wee fall into by sumptuous and un
seasonable banketts, continually devising new
sawces, and provocation of gluttonye to satisfie
our unsatiable appetite."
Conjurers, or medicine men (Plate XII),
were important personages in early American
tribal life, and the Indians, White reported,
"give great credit to their speeche, which
oftentymes they finde to bee true."
An Early American Festival
One of White's most elaborate works was
his interpretation of a festival scene (Plates
XIV, XV) in which men and women prance
in a kind of endless conga line around a circle
enclosed by seven curiously carved posts, with
"three of the fayrest Virgins" revolving slowly
in the center. These events presumably were
related to some phase of the crop cycle.
Beside the entombed bodies of their de
parted chiefs (Plate XVI), White wrote, the
Indians "sett their idol Kiwasa . . . for they
are persuaded that the same doth kepe the
dead bodyes of their cheefe lordes that noth
inge may hurt them."
And he added: "These
poore soules are thus instructed by nature to
reverence their princes even after their death."
In 1590 De Bry published in Latin Thomas
Hariot's Admiranda Narratio, illustrated by
copperplate engravings from White's original
Virginia water colors. The Florida volume,
Brevis Narratio,with engravings of Le Moyne's
paintings, appeared a year later. These two
works launched De Bry's great publishing
project, Grands et Petits Voyages.
The eleven De Bry engravings after White
and four after Le Moyne, reproduced on the
following 16 pages of the NATIONAL GEO
GRAPHIC MAGAZINE, have been taken directly
from Admiranda Narratioand Brevis Narratio,
in the Rare Books Iivision of the Library of
Congress, Washington, I. C.
The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the
Library contains one of the few copies of
De Bry's 1590 English version of Hariot.
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